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Opening Up the Museum to an Emerging Artist
The first view of Shura Chernozatonskaya’s work is on the soaring white wall of the Brooklyn Museum’s lobby, spanning over forty feet and high above viewer’s heads.
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Without Elaboration
Forrest Bess was born in Bay City, Texas on October 5, 1911, one year before Agnes Martin (1912-2004) and Jackson Pollock (1912-1956) joined him on this planet. Martin’s entry point was Macklin, Saskatchewan; Pollock’s was Cody, Wyoming. Martin and Pollock moved to New York in order to study, and le
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The Hand in the Garden, the Head in the Attic (The Golem Next Door, Part 2)
Unhampered by false modesty, the timeline for Matt Freedman’s installation, The Golem of Ridgewood reaches all the way back to “Eden—6000 BCE,” where “G-d fashions Adam from the dust of the ground, and animates him.” That’s certainly one way to begin at the beginning, as the King of Hearts gravely a
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Mud, Blood and Lightning Bolts (The Golem Next Door, Part 1)
In The Golem: How He Came Into the World (Der Golem, wie er in die Welt kam), a German silent film from 1920, a rabbi molds the eponymous humanoid out of clay and animates it through an amulet containing a scrap of parchment written with a magic word.
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Neither Under Construction Nor Complete
CHICAGO — We’re now a quarter of the way through Scottish artist Martin Creed’s year-long “residency” at the MCA Chicago. I put “residency” in quotation marks because Creed is only going to be here sporadically throughout 2012. So far, the MCA has put one new work by Creed on display each month, non
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Tonight's State of Drawing Panel and Amy Sillman's iPhone Animation
Tonight's invite-only symposium organized by The Drawing Center invited five artists and two curators to explore the state of drawing today. Here's my report.
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Art Rx
This week, we're all in recovery and laying low but the doctor says you need to get out of the house. We're cleansing our systems of the New York art fairs and moving onto something new. The doctor has written you a prescription that involves lots of crocheting, timelines galore, artful dinner conve
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Crime as American Idol
SAN FRANCISCO — About twenty years ago, Sega released a video game titled Michael Jackson’s Moonwalker. As a young lad, me and my friends spent hours in front of the television playing as Michael Jackson as he scurried through dark alleys killing bad guys with high kicks and fedora hat throws. The S
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Re-Painting a King, Resisting Imperialism and a New Type of Art Conservation
Renowned conservator Glenn Wharton recently released a new book, The Painted King: Art, Activism and Authenticity in Hawai'i, which he spoke about last week at New York University. Wharton's book provides a captivating account of his years spent with the well-known statue of the 19th C. Hawai'ian Ki
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Female Light and Space Pioneer Finally Getting Her Due
LOS ANGELES — As a primary member of the Light and Space movement of the 1960’s, Helen Pashgian played a pivotal role in establishing the legitimacy of California art in the second half of the 20th century. However, being one of the only women in LA's macho art scene of the era, her work was often o
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Art Within a Former Taoist Temple
BEIJING — For the past few years, the hutong area in downtown Beijing has become a new territory for experimental art spaces with the aim of establishing a different, participatory relationship with the viewers and the local people. In April 2011, Zajia Art Lab, run by Italian sinologist and curator
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Historic Protest from 1960s and 1970s California
LOS ANGELES — West Hollywood, known popularly today for its thriving design culture and LGBT community. During the day, you can visit any number of design studios and the sprawling Pacific Design Center complex. At night, Santa Monica Blvd. lights up with raucous bars and bouncing clubs catering to